Fewer than 5% of people have food allergies according to a recent study done by the JAMA

A new study has shown that most people who think they have food allergies do not. The government-funded study, published in the May 12 Journal of the American Medical Association and organized by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, shows that while 30 percent of people believe they have food allergies, fewer than 5 percent actually do (in children, the percentage of sufferers is around 8 percent).

The study found that a combination of factors has led to the vast overestimation of food allergies. After looking at 72 food allergy studies published between January 1988 and September 2009, the researchers deduced that doctors commonly misdiagnosed allergies, that tests often gave foggy results and that studies on food allergies were often subpar (for example, the researchers waded through a pool of 12,000 published papers in order to choose the 72 rigorous studies that they ultimately used). In addition, people often incorrectly self-diagnose an allergy when they simply react badly to a food.

In large part, patients are unclear about the difference between an allergy and an intolerance. An allergy, by definition, involves the immune system.

Still others have been misdiagnosed. The researchers, who included doctors and scientists from various institutions, found that less than 50 percent of those are diagnosed with an allergy after undergoing two common tests -- a skin prick and a blood test -- actually have that allergy.

Receiving a positive allergy test is not the same as actually having an allergy -- a misunderstanding that leads many physicians to misdiagnose their patients. Allergy tests screen for IGE antibodies, which can indicate an allergy to a certain substance. However, while the IGE antibodies may point to an allergy, their presence is, in practice, irrelevant if a person has no physical reaction to the suspected allergen. Dr. Joshua Boyce, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard and an allergist and pediatric pulmonologist, told The New York Times that the immune system often produces IgE antibodies while reacting to certain food proteins, but that "these antibodies can be transient and even inconsequential."



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